Bloody Coward
by Heaven And Above
Summary: Wolfstar one-shot, SLASH. Sirius gets called a coward for the very first time in his life. Sirius' P.O.V.


I

The wind whispers into his ear.

He never knew that it was possible for the wind to whisper in such a sonorous voice, just like he never knew that it was possible to see such beauty in the stormy sky. He never knew it was possible to feel the oh so sweet warmth of a touch inflicted by the cold as ice raindrops.

But then again. Maybe it is not possible after all.

Maybe he's just going insane.

Yeah, that seems like a more believable version of truth.

However he chooses to believe the other version. The one, where all those wonderful feelings are true. The one, where he gets to keep his sanity. Or maybe not.

He's confused now by all the thoughts in his head. His heart is pounding as if it wanted to break, his seemingly already broken ribcage.

His mouth breathes out a white puff of warm air and his lungs feel like they're on fire.

It is, however a far more pleasant feeling than that in his stomach. He feels sick. There's a horrible mixture of pain, happiness, pity, guilt, adoration and envy all bubbling furiously trying to get out some way, doesn't matter shall it be by a scream, a tear or a drop of blood.

"Never again" He chuckles lowly gripping his soaking black hair with his hands "Never again am I letting myself be this fucking stupid"

'Disgusting' he hears the wind whisper harshly

'Disgusting' his mind repeats as the sky seems to be mocking him by shifting, turning and haunting his poor mind with a perfect replica of the face, he wished so desperately to forget.

'Disgusting' the rain replies and all of a sudden he is ripped out of the illusion of warmth and left to stand there freezing.

"Yes. Indeed. Disgusting." He agrees softly to himself.

'Love' His aching heart says so softly that it is barely audible under all of the protest and cries.

"No. Disgusting." He corrects harshly and the wind, the sky and the rain are all on his side about this one.

'No. Love.' His heart gives out one last hard and painful thump, before slowing down to its normal pace. 'Love.' It whispers faintly once again.

II

"Where have you been?"

Torture. This voice is sheer torture.

"Out for a walk" He replies smiling, though he doesn't feel like smiling at all.

"In this kind of weather?" He hears surprise, disbelief and worst of all worry.

Torture.

"Just a bit of rain 'is all"

"You're gonna catch a cold" Suddenly the torture masqueraded as a boy is standing up and putting his book down, "Your skin is burning" cold fingers brush against his forehead

Oh yes please. Torture me some more. Please.

"I-I'm okay" His voice is an octave higher now

"What are you doing, walking alone anyways?" The suspicion makes its way into those solemn golden eyes.

"Nothing. Taking a little breather, you could say" He answers as truthfully as his rightful mind lets him to.

The elegant raise of an eyebrow combined with concern clear on those lips, which are now forming a straight unhappy line, makes his foolish heart speed up one more time.

"Well come on, now"

Apparently the question is clear in his eyes, because the boy explains

"Go change. I'll make you some hot chocolate."

'Disgusting!' He screams inwardly in hurry to silence the traitor 'Love' echoing in the back of his mind.

III

"Whatch'ya thinking about?" He hears soft voice interrupt the peaceful silence in the Astronomy tower and drags his eyes away from the silver glimmers in the sky. He meets gold orbs instead and they seem to be brighter than any object apparent in the blue tonight.

"How did you find me?" He asks surprised

"Easy – I looked" Humor in the other boy's voice rings in his ears "What are you doing here, Sirius?" And the humor is gone just like that

"Clearing my head"

"You seem to be doing that a lot lately" Not an accusation. Worry.

"Yeah, I guess" He shrugs not bothering to deny it

"Want to talk about it?" All the emotions he once never even hoped to hear in someone else's voice while talking to him are there now. Concern. Care. Affection. And his heart starts doing leaps and running in circles.

"Nope" And he isn't lying. He really doesn't want to talk about it.

"Didn't think so" Acceptance. He watches the lanky figure settle itself next to him on the ground. "You know you can though, if you ever want to"

"Yeah, I know"

"Never forget that, Sirius"

He wants to point out the unusual fascination with his name the other boy seems to have tonight, but doesn't. Instead he smiles. After a long uneasy stare he gets a smile in return.

"You know, whatever it is you're so worried about, I'm sure it is going to be okay in the end"

_Yeah, I wouldn't be so sure about that._

"I guess" He nods nonetheless.

A heavy uncomfortable silence takes place for a while, but he isn't the one to break it.

"Sirius?"

"Yeah?"

"…"

"Remus?"

"Nothing. Never mind."

"Oh."

IV

"Are you okay?" The black haired boy asks him out of nowhere one day.

"Hm?"

"Are you okay? You've been a bit out of it, you know…" Hesitant concern.

"Have I? Didn't notice."

"You've been acting kind of weird lately… And Moony has been worried about you for almost a month now…it's just… are you sure everything's alright?"

"I'm fine, James. You know Moony worries too much for his own good."

_Yeah, that's right he's always worried. About everything. It's nothing special._

"Oh. I guess."

V

"Well spit it out then. What did I do?" He finds himself cornered in an empty classroom.

"What are you talking about?"

"You've been avoiding me for the past few days." The sonorous voice now has a dangerous streak in it.

"H-Huh?" He murmurs taking a step back from the determined looking boy

The boy takes a step towards.

"Yesterday, when you saw me in the hallway, you pretended to chat with that first year ravenclaw and scared her to death as you took off when you thought I wasn't looking."

"W-wasn't me." His voice just like his legs are shaking for unknown reasons as he tries to recreate the distance between them, but feels a desk against his back forbidding him to go any farther.

"Of course" Sarcasm and one more step closer. "You practically begged the Potion's teacher to switch partners, when you found out we were paired together" Somehow that elegant raise of an eyebrow looks menacing to him now.

"You suck at Potions?" He offers weakly

The other boy frowns slightly at that, but his determination doesn't falter as he closes what was left of the primary distance between and reaches his hands around him to put them on the desk.

"You've been sleeping in the common room for the last week?" He is asked and his breath leaves him in an instant. They are too close now and his brain refuses to function properly, leaving him to cope on his own while it admires the color of the golden-eyed boy's lips.

"Co-co-comfy couch?" He doesn't mean for it to sound like a question, but his wavering voice doesn't want to cooperate either.

"Comfy couch?!" The roar echoes in the room and he realizes that he has never felt quite as small. "Bloody hell, Sirius! Just spit it out already! What's wrong?" He is startled to hear the boy scream and reckons there must be the first time for everything, but once he gets over the raise of the voice and their closeness he manages to catch a hint of desperation.

"I just… I can't tell you okay?" He whispers with all the sincerity in his eyes he can muster

"Oh." A long pause."Okay" And suddenly there's distance between them. Not only the kind that was there at the beginning. Suddenly there's some other kind of space between the boys that neither of them knew existed. And it feels cold. So cold in fact, that he sees the other boy slump his shoulders as if trying to keep all what's left of the warmth inside.

He mutters a quiet apology as he darts out of the classroom. When he reaches the dorms he realizes, just how out of character the whole conversation was. For both of them.

VI

"Talk to him!"

"I have nothing to say to him, James!"

"How about, oh I don't know… 'I'm a bloody coward'?!"

He flinches

"What?" He asks, though he honestly doesn't want an answer.

"You heard me! … What?! You thought I didn't notice?!" the black haired boy's voice is destroying the silence of the common room.

"Notice… what exactly?" He whispers hesitantly and feels his face drain of blood.

"'_What exactly?_'…Idiot! What do you think?!" he gets yelled at

"I-I…"

"Look, I'm not even going to waste my breath. You can go out there, tell him how you feel and fight for it or you can stay here moping around and pitying yourself. The choice is yours."

He is left staring at the back of his best friend with wide eyes. He had heard a lot of names in his lifetime, but this is the first time someone calls him a coward. First time ever.

"What if he … what if it goes wrong?!" He jumps up screaming after the retreating figure and it stops.

"Then you try again, Padfoot"

VII

"So?"

He feels his palms sweat, his breath hike and his knees turn into jelly, but nonetheless, he doesn't budge an inch. He's the one doing the cornering now.

"Moony, I'm sorry" He mutters determinedly

"What for?" The voice is calm and serene. It drives him mad in more ways than just one.

"Avoiding you, being a coward and … well I guess most of all… keeping things from you." He wants to add 'for pushing you away' so bad that the words seem to tighten his throat, but he feels that it would be like crossing the lines, he so carefully drew. And that is just stupid keeping in mind the circumstances.

"You're allowed to have secrets, Sirius." But there's something in that voice. Hurt maybe. Or maybe anger. He knows he should be able to tell just like always, but for some strange reason his ability to differentiate the other boy's emotions is gone.

"Not from you. I have no secrets from you. I've never had." He bites his tongue because the walls are crumbling. Slowly. Brick by brick.

"It's okay, Pads, really… I just…" He needs to hear the end of that sentence. He feels like it's something so important that it cannot be overlooked. However, the ending never comes.

"Remus?"

"What are we doing in the broom closet, Sirius? I can't see a damn thing"

He receives a complaint instead and he feels like that important something just slipped right from his fingertips.

"Sirius?"

He wishes for more time and realizes untimely that he didn't think this through.

"Padfoot?"

"I-…" His voice cracks and he curses inwardly. "Remus, I-… bloody hell… I need to... uh… tell you something" Yes, that's a good start "But I need you to promise you won't hate me"

"I promise." Just like that. No hesitation, no questions.

_You're making it so easy. You always have. That's why I'm in so deep by now._

He feels his body act on its own accord as he leans in just a tad bit closer to the other boy in this already tiny space.

"See… There's this thing James said that got me thinking, that I should tell you… and I don't usually take James' advice so seriously, but this time he had a point… I think..." For those of you who are mistaking these words of his for a sudden burst of courage – they are far from it. They are a nervous and scared mumble.

"Sirius?" He swears he hears the golden-eyed boy's voice tremble

"You just… I just… we… and he said…" He is close to panic now, because his body and his brain seem to be at a disagreement.

The boys' faces are centimeters away. Shivers are running up and down his spine while he desperately tries to hang on to his rational mind.

"I-…" He breathes and suddenly his traitor lips are no longer searching for words, but pressing themselves against the softness of the other boy's mouth.

He wants to scream. Or to lose himself in the fireworks his mind is creating. Or to hide. Or to press their bodies closer. Or to jump off a roof.

He wants to do so many different things all at the same time. The horrible bubbling feeling he has felt in his stomach all this time seems to triple and then a moment later it's replaced by fear.

He's going insane. He really is. Or maybe he's already there and he has nowhere left to go.

And the only thing that makes him snap out of it is the other boy turning rigid and tense. It brings him back to reality.

He uses the leftovers of his self control to push himself away. He curses his eyes for adjusting to the darkness so well. Because the other way he couldn't see. He couldn't see the absolute shock on the boy's face.

'Disgusting?' his heart asks quietly in horror

'TRAITOR!' everything else inside him screams at the poor blood-pumping organ.

He has to flee now. He needs to because any moment-

"Si-si-sirius?"

"God, I am so sorry, Remus, I just…"

_You just what? Slipped and landed on his lips? _

As he frowns at the shock in the golden eyes, he curses James and his bloody fake omniscience. He stumbles to the door as quickly as he possibly can.

A hand clinging to his robe stops him.

There's silence as neither of them moves for an overly long moment.

"Sirius?" A gentle whisper makes him turn around.

And as he feels a warm touch against his mouth everything falls into places. And he is not going insane anymore. Or maybe… Or maybe they've both been insane this whole time.


End file.
